Process of obtaining salt.



No. 68|,407. Patented Aug. 27, l90l. P. H. EDWARD.

PROCESS 0F OBTAINING SALT.

(Application filed, June 27, 1900.)

2 Sheets-Sheet l,

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(Application led June 27, 1900.)

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UNITED STATES I PATENT OFFICE;

BERCIE II. COWARD, OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

PROCESS oF OBTAINING SALT.

srEcrrrcArIoN forming part of Letters Patent No. 681,407, dated August '27, 190i.

Application filed June 27, 1900l Serial No. 21.858. (No specimens.)

To cZZ whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, PERCIE H. COWAED, a citizen of the United States of America', and a resident of the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Art of Obtaining Salt, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to means for obtaining salt from sea Water or brine through solar evaporation or artificial heat.

The object of it is to produce a purer and cleaner article than is produced by any of the methods heretofore followed and the apparatus employed to carry out the same. The method that I follow and the apparatus that vI employ enable me to make better salt,

more rapidly, with greater economy, and with less labor than was ever done before, and, moreover, to obtain it in places hitherto considered unavailable for the production of salt.

I shall refer to the drawings accompanying this specification for a detailed statement, description, and illustration of my method and apparatus aforesaid.

In the said drawings, Figure 1 is a diagrammatic view, slightly in perspective, showing salt-works such as are now in operation at various places where the old ways and methods of producing solar-evaporated salt are practiced. Fig. 2 is a similar View showing how the old salt-works can be altered or remodeled to make salt according to my improved process. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a plant or salt-Works specially designed to carry out my invention and embodying one of the best forms thereof.

Like reference-signs indicate like parts in the three said figures.

The nature and aim of my invention will be better understood and more clearly defined by a brief reference to and comparison with what I believe to be the process most commonly followed by people engaged in the saltmaking industry, and which, so far as I am aware, has not been materially departed from or varied from the earliest ages when the manufacture of salt became an art up to the present time. The plant used for carrying out this old process is fairly well illustrated in Fig. 1 of the drawings.. The water from which the salt is obtained is either provided for the purpose in dikes, such as D, which are built to confine the water during extremely high tides. This pond or reservoir is not shown in full in the drawings,

owing to their restricted dimensions, the letter B merely indicating the waters edge, but, as will be understood, it is made so as to hold a body of water proportionate to thecapacity of the plant to turn out salt and spread in a more or less thin sheet to favor its condensation. Several receiving-ponds are sometimes used. The condensed Water is transferred successively from the receiving pond or ponds B to a number of smaller ponds E, Where it evaporates still more, getting stronger in each succeeding pond E until it has become a saturated brine. In other words, the water in the large receiving-pond is drawn off 'as wanted into any one of the smaller ponds and is slowly worked over from one smallpond to another as it becomes denser, being held a certain length of time in each till it gets to be a saturated solution in the last pond. These pondsE maybe called liming-ponds, as it is in them that the salt water is rid of its sulfate of lime, which deposits in the bottom of the ponds when the water is at a density of about 15 Baume. They are surrounded by embankments or levees F, in which are gates Gto let in the water from the receiving-pond above. Being freed from lime and brought up to the proper degree of. concentration-say to a density of 25 Baume-'- the water is run into a ditch H through gates I and from there is let into small crystalliz-v ing-ponds J. The land on which these saltworks are laid out is frequently a fairly hard blue clay-that is to say, land of this character is preferred and usually selected. The heavy growth of sea-weed is not disturbed in the large pond B, nor is it disturbed in the.

adjoining ponds E, where, however, it is killed off gradually by the salt; butin the crystalli-z'ing-ponds, where the salt is precipitated, the ,soil is excavated more or less, leveled o, and rolled with a heavy roller to get as hard a foundation as possible thereby.

Y elfiov This is surrounded by dikes K, with boards L inside the earthworks, and gates M. The salt is crystallized on the thus-prepared bottom of the small ponds J. When the salt is ready to be gathered, after it is precipitated and the remaining water run O back into the ditch H, it is shoveled up into ridges or small heaps, which are allowed to stand for some little time in the crystallizingponds to allow as much as possible of the bittern or mother-liquor to drain off, which still remains after the salt has been precipitated from the sea-water. After that the salt is taken out of the crystallizing-ponds'by manual laborfor instance, with wheel-barrows passed over running-boards, as indicated in Fig. 1 of the drawings, orin the more pretentious and important places small portable tracks are laid down between the rows of salt heaps and the salt is shoveled up into a small car, which is .run out of the crystallizing-pond by hand and dumped or unloaded at the base of a large pile, such as is shown at N, Fig. 2. The salt is then shoveled up into the large pile. The salt piles N are each about ten feet high and from fifty to sixty feet long by twenty feet wide and more. The foundation of these piles is generally the ground that has been excavated from the adjoining ponds J. This is usedso as `to create a surface above the reach of high. tides. It is next to impossible to recover the salt from the beds of clay Without it'being contaminated with some of the earth it is made on, which no mechanical process of refining can wholly eliminate. Neither can such foreign substances or compounds as bromin7 iodin, sodium sulfate, magnesium chlorid, and sulfate contained in the bittern be entirely separated from the salt owing to the imperfect mode of handling it. Y

In carrying out my invention I use a hard bottom to crystallize or precipitate the salt on, and I arrange to recover and pile up the salt by flushin g or washing it out, preferably by the use of a concentrated solution of sea Water or brine, using gravity or pumping, as the lay of the works may permit or require. This is calculated to give me an article (salt) free from all foreign substances, clean, and pure.

My way of proceeding will now be explained in detail, rst with reference to Fig. 3 of the drawings, which shows salt-works laid out to conduct operations according to my improved method.

Referring to said Fig. 3, E2 represents a lixning pond similar to the ponds E previously described; but preferably made, loottom and sides, with concrete or like hard material, as lthe section-lines at the lower edge of Fig. 3 indicate. The salt water conveyed to this pond E2 is drawn, as with the old process, from a receiving-pond, such as is shown at B, Fig. 1, and which requires no further description here. The pond E2 may be subdivided into sections, or several ponds E2 may be provided, 'and the same may be located either close to the receiving-pond or at a distance therefrom, as required in any case. After the water has deposited its lime and organic matter and reached the proper degree of concentration in the pond or ponds E2, I run it into a concrete or stoner-lined ditch H2 through gates, as 2, or through a suitable line. of pipes, according to the dis tance. tallizing or precipitating ponds J2, which are constructed either of wood, artificial stone, slate, brick, or'other hard substance (indicated by the section-linesin the upper part of Fig. on any rm and high land at any elevation that may be necessary to get the best natural advantages for recovering and pilingup the salt after it has been crystallized or precipitated. As suggested in said Fig. 3, these ponds J2 are conveniently located on a hillside to take advantage of the slope of the ground in recovering and piling the salt in the manner that will presently be described. The said ponds J2 may be of any suitable size, and when possibleI would build them at an elevation of fifteen to twenty feet above the sea-level. As shown, the concentrated water is elevated into them from the ditch H2 by means of a pump O and pipes l), discharging into the several ponds. This water is allowed to remain in the said ponds J2 till the salt is crystallized or precipitated, after `which the mother-liquor is run off and the salt drained. The removal of the salt from the crystallizing orprecipitatingponds is accomplished in the following manner, which I believe to be entirely new and original in the history of the manufacture of salt; I connect each pond J2 with a series of delivery-pipes Q, having suitable gate-valves R S and projecting over a salt-du mp or pilingground T, above which said pipes are suitably supported. When the salt has crystal lized or precipitated to a sufficient depth to be removed and has been drained, as before stated, I attach a hose to the discharge end of the pipes P, that are coupled with the pump O, and direct a stream of concentrated salt Water from the ditch H2 onto the crystallized or precipitated salt in the ponds J2. at such a pressure that it will cause the salt to be broken up and carried by the force of the water directed thereon by the hose to the delivery-pipes Q and through them to the pilingplace T below. This place is covered up with wood or built of stone or similar material and made sloping toward the ditch H2, so that the water used for flushing or washing out the The ditch H2 is dug below the crys-` IOO IIO

salt will immediately run off back into said I on such a pitch or incline as to carry the salt The water that runs back into the ditch from I the piling-ground, it will be noted, can be used again, either to extract the salt from it or to Wash out the crystallized or precipitated salt. Being practically a saturated solution, of a density of about 25 Baume, it will not dissolve the salt, and therefore no loss will result from its use in the manner specified. By this means I am enabled to produce salt of great purity, uncontaminated with mud, which by the old methods is unavoidable,

and free frointhe foreign substances or coin-v pounds contained in the bittern.

Among other advantages to be gained by the use of my improved process is my ability to use land that is at present considered worthless for any known purpose-to wit, soft, marshy land incapable of any use by reason of its boggy, slimy, and sticky nature, but yet firm enough to support a body of water, so that the same could be partly evaporated by the sun and wind, as in the receiving-pond B hereinbefore described. The partly-evaporated water from such places would be purified and turned into saleable salt with my process by passing through the other parts of the saltworks, which might be i located miles away from the receiving-pond.

Thus I provide what I believe to be a new, simple, practical, and cheap process of producing and handling solar-evaporated salt, which will effect a great saving in the present cost of producing and handling that product, allowing a large amount to be crystallized or precipitated and handled from one central works, the water being concentrated even at a distance of several miles.

To use my invention in salt-works now in existence, I would reconstruct them and put in my improvements after the manner represented in Fig. 2 of the drawings. The source of supply A and the receiving-pond B are the same in this View as in Fig. l. The limingponds E3, I would line with concrete or similar hard material and have them discharge into a similarly-constructed ditch H3 through suitable gateways, as i3. The crystallizingponds J3, I would likewise provide with an artificial-stone surface or other hard bottom, with sides to correspond and drains tolet out the mother-liquor after the crystallization of the salt. The concrete or artificial-stone work here referred to is indicated by the sectionlines on the right of Fig. 3. The concentrated salt Water that would be received in the ditch H3 from the liming-ponds above it could be pumped directly into the ponds J 3 by means of an ordinary lift and force pump O2. To remove the crystallized and drained salt from the ponds J 3, I would furnish them With gatevalves B2 and delivery-pipes Q2, laid out on an incline in the ditch Hsand connected with a centrifugal pump U. Now it will be understood that by attaching a hose to the pump O2 and forcing a stream of concentrated salt water therethrough and onto the salt to be removed in the manner before described the salt will be washed out of said ponds and floated down the pipes Q2 to the centrifugal pump, which can be used to raise both the Water and salt floating therein and made todischarge the same through a suitably-supported line of pipe Q3 on a suitably-prepared and suitably-drained piling-place, Where the salt would remain in piles N and the water flow back into the ditch H3. In case the ditch H3 were not deep enough to arrange the pipes Q2 on a proper pitch I would run said pipes into a Well from which the water and salt could be pumped to such height as would be necessary to allow the same to flow by grav-- crystallizing the salt from brine, iiushing the salt to wash itafter crystallization, and transferring it by such flushing operation, substantially as described.

2. The herein-described process of obtaining salt, consisting in concentrating brine,

i crystallizing the salt, removing the motherliquor and draining the salt, iinshing the drained salt with a practicallysaturated brine, conveying the salt and iiushing-brine and permitting the flushing-brine to drain oi, substantially as described.

3. The herein-described continuous process of obtaining salt, consisting in concentrating a body-brine then crystallizing the salt from a portion of the brine, then removing the IOO mother-liquid from and draining the crysf tallized salt, then directing a ushing stream of concentrated brine on the salt thereby simultaneously washing and conveying the salt from the place where it was crystallized, and finally causing the ilushing-brine to drain off into the body of brine, substantially as described.

Signed by me at San Francisco, California, this 19th day of June, 1900.

PERCIE H. COWARD.

Witnesses:

D. E. ALEXANDER, L. F. BARLOW.

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